Necrons - Nightmare Shroud Question

[Kawauso]

The wording for the item is as follows:
"The Nightmare Shroud can be used during the Shooting phase instead of firing a weapon. Choose an unengaged enemy unit within 18" of the Cryptek. That unit must immediately take a Morale check."

My question is: when does this effect happen in regard to shots fired by other models in the Cryptek's unit?

According to the BRB on p.18 under "Fast Rolling with Different Weapons": "When a unit fires, all of its weapons are fired simultaneously, so you should ideally roll all of its To Hit dice together."

However, because the Morale check is a different effect from firing a weapon, I see a potential problem here.

For example, let's say the Cryptek is with a squad of Warriors. The unit chooses to fire on a squad of Tactical Marines. Does the Morale check take place before the Warriors roll To Hit/Wound? If it does, the squad could have the LD9 bonus from their sergeant. If, however, the Morale check takes place after hits/wounds from the Warriors, they would be stuck with the Marine-standard LD8.

Since the Morale check doesn't have to hit or wound, but takes place at the same time as the Warriors firing their Gauss Flayers (i.e. when the Warriors are rolling To Hit is when the Nightmare Shroud is 'going off', one would think)...what happens here, exactly?

It would seem at face value like the Morale check would take place either just before or just after the Warriors roll To Hit, but that seems a little goofy...I mean, if it's before the To Hit roll, for example, the enemy unit could flee beyond the range of the Warriors' weapons...but they've already measured for range so they would still be rolling To Hit like normal...

Any opinions on this from anyone else?

[thecactusman17]

It happens at the same time. Shooting from a unit is always simultaneous, and the effects of shooting are always simultaneous, even if you are somehow firing at multiple enemy units.

There is no initiative step when resolving shots from a single unit. No statuses are applied until after the shooting results have been calculated. If a second unit wishes to shoot at the same target, that unit and subsequent units will have to deal with the consequences of the previous units' actions.

If, for example, you were to cause 25% casualties and force a normal morale check, and the initial Shroud check was failed, here is what would happen:

Player takes wounds, player makes nightmare shroud check--> Player loses 25% models, player fails nightmare check, and runs --> shooting phase ends--> Player makes morale check for losing 25% of models -->Player automatically fails morale check due to fleeing, runs additional distance.

If you had a second nightmare shroud, and the first nightmare shroud sent a unit running, you could choose to use the same ability a second time on the hapless squad. This would cause them to run AGAIN immediately, as fleeing units auto-fail morale tests of any sort. Then they would run a THIRD time after the phase.

If you had the proper arrangement of units, you could theoretically drive a unit from one end of the board to the other in the space of a single player turn, all based on one failed morale test early in the turn (such as from a tank shock)